Having been in medicine a long time, one starts to realize that there are trendy diagnoses that show up every so often. Some of these are from within the allopathic community, but most come from alternative sources. One of those trendy diagnoses right now is adrenal fatigue. That sounds terrible. Aren’t the adrenal glands important? Shouldn’t we want them to be full of energy and not fatigued? Hey, wait, what are the adrenal glands anyway?
Let’s start with that last question. The adrenal glands produce four hormones. These two glands look a bit like stocking caps and sit on top of the kidneys. They are not connected to the kidneys, just located next to them. There is an inner and an outer layer that produce two different hormones in each layer. Their job is to produce hormones; adrenaline, noradrenaline, cortisol and aldosterone. These hormones are important for blood sugar regulation, metabolism, sex hormone production, salt and water regulation and our response to stress. The adrenal glands can certainly fail, but due to redundancy, that is a pretty uncommon condition.
Blood tests for the adrenal hormones are still the standard of care. These tests can be a bit tricky as some require testing to be drawn at specific times to be most useful. Of ...
